Lv/wsop Trip Report (long But With Pictures & Videos)

Arrived in Vegas on Wednesday the 20th and bought in for Events #35 and #38 for my WSOP debut. I was staying at the Rio and it was around 2 a.m. when I mistakenly took an elevator that didn't go to my floor. Before I stepped out, I found myself alone in the elevator with a very familiar face: It was Johnny F***ing Chan. I tried not to appear in awe so I put on my best poker face and asked him nonchalantly: “How’s it going, Johnny?” I could be wrong, but it would be safe to guess that he wasn’t in a mood to chit chat when he replied tersely with 3 simple words: “dead f***ing tired.” I couldn't think of a witty reply so I just wished him good luck in the WSOP.Event #35 (Thursday)The field for this event was larger than I expected as we had about 2,500 players (as a comparison, the $1,500 NLHE event a week before Event #35 drew about 1,800 players). Matt “MattSuspect” Molinari was at my initial table but besides him I didn’t recognize anyone else. Phil Gordon was playing at the table right next to me.We started with 3,000 chips and the blinds at 25/50. The players at my table were fairly decent I thought and definitely were paying a lot of attention to everyone else at the table. I was hoping that there would be a least a couple of donkeys at my table but didn't have such luck. Couldn’t really get anything going and my stack hovered around 3K for the first few levels. About 5 hours into the tournament, with a stack of about 2,500 and the blinds at 150/300, I picked up Ah Kh and was all in after a preflop raise. Unfortunately, I ran into pocket aces which ended my first WSOP event. I don't know where I finished officially but there were about 800 players left when I busted. FridaySpent most of the day with wife and in-laws. Also baby-sat a baby girl of my friends for a few hours. Baby Katherine wouldn't stop crying so we took her downstairs and showed her around the Rio. For some reason, baby Katherine would was really fascinated with Chip ’n Dale and they weren’t the Disney squirrels either GetSprung was playing PaiGow at Sahara with Zach on Friday night and invited me. I was playing a couple of WSOP SNGs but would have joined them if I didn’t have an event the following day. The play in these WSOP SNGs were soft I thought and sometimes even horrific.Event #38 (Saturday and Sunday)Started this tournament at the same table with Shane Schleger. I didn’t recognize anyone else at my table but there was a young player in Full Tilt's gear who I thought was a solid player. The first 2 levels went by without anyone busting from our table as everyone was playing quite cautiously. I headed into the first break with about 3,800 (started with 3,000).Shortly after the first break, I picked up KK UTG and made a standard raise. Shane Schleger re-raised all in from MP with QQ and I doubled up to about 9K after my kings held up. Schleger was down to about 1,800 after this hand and began to push all-in preflop whenever he played a pot (blinds were at 100/200). I doubled him up with AK against his QQ about an orbit following our showdown and dropped down to about 7K. A flopped trips moments later against a different player gave me the chip lead at my table with about 12K.During Level 4 (still at 100/200 blinds but with ante of 25) with a stack of about 15K, I played two huge pots with the following hands. The young player wearing Full Tilt's gear raised to 600 from UTG and I called with 9cTc from MP. Two short stacks with about 2K each went all in from LP and UTG just called the 1,500 additional raise. The main pot now had about 5,800 and UTG led out for about 1,800 on a flop of Th7h6x. I contemplated on raising for info but decided to call and see what would develop on the turn. Turn was a non-heart low card (3 or 4) and UTG checked. UTG had about 9K behind and I decided to put the pressure on him and put in a pot-sized bet of 9K (5,800 in main and 3,600 in the side) which would put him all in. My table image was very good as I had shown down only premium hands so far. UTG deliberated for about 3 minutes before saying that he thinks I have a monster and folded. He didn’t show his hand but claimed to have folded JJ. Short stacks then turned over AQ and AK (no flush draw). River brought another low card and I scooped a pot that I probably shouldn’t have won if UTG were telling the truth.At Level 5, a player with about 7K and I were all in on a flop of 8c8hTh. He held A 10 (without the ace of heart) and I had Jh9h. I remember yelling in my mind “any heart, J, Q or 7” after bricking the turn and the river showed a 7... of heart for a straight flush! This pot increased my chip count to over 30K and propelled me over JC Tran as the overall chip leader (he had about 21K). Not sure if the straight flush hand was reported but Pokernews.com started to track my chip count on a regular basis from this point. I held on to the chip lead and chipped up for the next three levels or so before this following hand took place:http://www.fullconta...howtopic=102302No real memorable hands took place after this until we were near the money bubble. With 273 left (top 270 paid) I picked up Aces for the first time in this tournament and was all in pre-flop against a big stack’s KK. No sick suck out fortunately and the money bubble burst around midnight. Andrew Lee (who eventually made the final table as the chip leader) was actually a short stack at my table nearing the bubble so he made quite a comeback. On the final hand of Day 1, a super laggy player raised from the button to 6K (with about 12K behind) when I was in the BB. (He had gone all in preflop the previous hand and after he won that hand he spoke to his friends on the rail in a foreign language. The dealer told him “English only please” to which the super laggy player responded “you just deal.” This irked a few players at the table and we stood up for the dealer and said that she was just doing her job.) I looked down at AJ and with about 25K left I re-raised all in. Super laggy player sat for about 10 seconds and said “you want to gamble?” before calling and flipping over KK. At this point two other players at my table told me that they had each folded an Ace. However, perhaps with the aid of bad karma on the super laggy player’s part for abusing the dealer and slow rolling, the turn brought the beautiful case Ace and I luck boxed my way to Day 2 with an average stack of about 55,000. I was so tired by this time (2 a.m.) and was just glad that I was finally going to sleep. Day 2 started with about 177 players left. Some big name pros still remaining were Jesus Ferguson, Men the Master, Marcel Luske, Kathy Liebert, Erica Schoenberg, Eric Lynch and Sorel Mizzi. At this point, the blinds were so high relative to everyone’s stack that we rarely saw a flop since someone was usually all in preflop. With about 80 left during Level 13 (blinds at 2,000/4,000), UTG+2 went all in for about 41K and I called from the BB with QQ. I was in a great position to reach 100K in chips when the other person turned over KQ offsuit but I couldn’t dodge a K. A few hands later I busted when my J high couldn’t hold up against 9 high.Following this tourney I met up with GetSprung who was working the cash games. We decided to hang out next day since he had to work and I was dead tired (as Johnny Chan would say).FCP Meet and Greet (Monday and Tuesday)Met up with gilbertology and troyomac in the Amazon room and railed the HORSE tourney for a bit with them and GetSprung, navybuttons and Keith Crime. Also ran into nutzbuster who was railing the same event and we were discussing what a sick table Daniel had. We estimated that the players at this table own about 20 bracelets:Then we were off to the FCP Meet and Greet at Planet Hollywood’s Spice Market (great buffet!) where we joined Lori, Sandi, Mark, Suited_Up and nutzbuster. Everyone was very pleasant and we learned quite a bit about Sandi and her prowess in the language of Mandarin. We talked about everything from sushi to the origin of my screen name and had a real good time. After dinner we went back to the Rio and railed DN for the remainder of the HORSE event. We took this picture which I think Brad Pitt Scott has posted (sorry my copy is a bit blurry):We then headed over to the “frat house” where gilbertology, troyomac, checkymcfold and navybuttons rented for the summer. We arrived around 1 a.m. and in addition to the four tenants, I met NoSup4U, CobaltBlue, TB17, Bubbleboy, PoppinFresh, aim786 and Jeetorious. I set up the Wii I had brought with me and immediately wished I had been charging everyone $5 bux per games played Btw, Troyo and TB17 have some sweet moves in Wii bowling! We also created Mii’s for Suited_Up and nutzbuster before they took on each other in what was probably one of the first Wii boxing matches ever between FCPers. This is what their Mii’s looked like:I left the fun house for a bit to take my wife back to our hotel around 3 am (so she could get some rest before her spa appointment in the morning). By the time I returned around 4 am, Troyo had gone to sleep and both Suited_Up and nutzbuster had left. I jumped in what Suited_Up referred to as the “highest low stakes home game” and played some games that I have never played before, including badugi, crazy pineapple and PLO with 2 flops. NoSup4U is right, PLO with 2 flops is a sick game and rarely would you not be playing for stacks! We were down to 3 handed (gilbertology, navybuttons and me) when we all went all in on the first flop to create a pot of about $1,300. I had a pair with an opened-ended straight flush draw and would have scooped with any club but no club hit (navy had a lower flush draw). Gilbertology won one of the pots while the other pot was split three-ways (we all made the Broadway). We broke the game around 8 am or so and luckily I escaped with a profit of about $150.We were done with poker for the night/morning but the Wii party just started to heat up. We took turn playing doubles tennis where the winning team would stay and continue to play against the challengers/losers. Between my partner navybuttons’ power serves and my volleys/net plays, we ran a streak of about 4 or 5 victories against gilbertology/checkymcfold and TB17/Jeetorius although they all took us to a decisive game 5 during our winning streak. Finally, our streak was ended by team gilbertology/checkymcfold after navybuttons had one or two beers too many. Team TB17/Jeetorius then won the following game against the new champs so every team ended up being winners. We then talked about one of the hands from my tournament for a bit before I took Jeetorius to Bellagio. I finally crashed around 10:30 am and didn’t wake up until 5 pm or so. Spent the rest of Tuesday night just recovering since I’m not 24 anymore like those kids Headed home Wednesday afternoon after having spent a memorable week in Vegas. It was great hanging out with all the FCPers I met during this trip and I wish I could have stayed longer to meet the others I haven’t met yet.As promised, below are links to the exclusive, never before seen video footages of some of the best Wii battles among FCP greats including nutzbuster, Suited_Up, checkymcfold and gilbertology. Enjoy!Match 1Match 2Match 3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1MO5JFjx7Q

QUOTE (Figger @ Thursday, August 2nd, 2007, 4:51 PM)

Frank is a stand up guy...unless, of course, he screws you...then he's a scumbag.

I believe gil was performing Ken/Ryu's "Rising Dragon Fish" (Shoryuken) from Street Fighter:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShoryukenI couldn't find a sound clip of "Shoryuken" or would have mixed it in the video

QUOTE (Figger @ Thursday, August 2nd, 2007, 4:51 PM)

Frank is a stand up guy...unless, of course, he screws you...then he's a scumbag.

[quote name='seacucumber' post='1973645' date='Friday, June 29th, 2007, 1:52 AM'](navy had a lower flush draw).[/quote]he always does. [/quote][quote name='seacucumber' post='1973645' date='Friday, June 29th, 2007, 1:52 AM']navybuttons had one or two beers too many.[/quote]he always does.great read, see you again sooner rather than later i hope.

I cant believe I just watched Wii boxing for 5 minutesNow I am going to have Eye of the Tiger stuck in my head for the rest of the day.DUNT ...... DUNT DUHHH DUNT DUNT ... DUH ... DUNTDUNT DUH DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHITS THE EYEE OF THE TTTIIGGEERRRRRR

Sorry but the only reason why you won all those games was because you had the first side which meant you always got to serve the deciding game.

You're right that definitely made a difference (home court Wii owner's advantage perhaps?) but gotta give props to navy who was clutch with those power serves... until he had 1, 2 beers too many that is. We gotta have a Wii bowling contest next time.

QUOTE (Figger @ Thursday, August 2nd, 2007, 4:51 PM)

Frank is a stand up guy...unless, of course, he screws you...then he's a scumbag.